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User blog:Hippie Rat/Epic Rap Battles of History's Ghostbusters vs Mythbusters - Hippie Rat Reviews
Hey yo hi hello So before I begin I'd like to mention that the lineup for the Epic Rap Battles of History Wiki review is finalized. If you have not asked me to review my battle/given me permission/been asked for permission/blah blah blah then you will not be in this one. Just about everyone who follows any of those parameters is being reviewed in it. If you're not one of those people, don't worry, I'm going to make the wiki-wide review a special thing I do every tenth review until I inevitably fuck it up and start doing it whenever I feel like. Idk. Anyway, don't start asking me to review you now because I'm not going to be setting up the lineup for the next one until I make a formal announcement about it sometime in the future. So keep an eye out for that if you're interested. As for when it will come out, I have 482 lines to look over, only 12 of which are being reviewed by an outside source. So give me some time with that. Now then, review time. Oh no. Not an actual ERB. Hippie what are you doing. You're overstepping your boundaries. Fuck it. Fair warning: If my word has any influence on your opinions, you are about to hate this battle. Or at least not like it as much as you used to. I don't know. So like, this battle could've been made in season 1 and no one would've known the difference. Hell, this could've been an Epic Rap Battle Parody and no one would've questioned it. It's not like I don't like it. All ERBs have merit. Even the bullshit one. But this just is not at the right level for season 4 premiere. It's not the worst, but it should've been hella better. Y'all did something that not even Melissa McCarthy could do: ruin the Ghostbusters. Shame. Motherfuckers didn't even mention Slimer. Characters, Actors, Audio, Visuals, et fucking cetera So like, it's Mythbusters going against the Ghostbusters. It makes sense. Everyone of worth is there. Jamie, Adam, the B-Team, the three main Ghostbusters, and Winston Zeddemore. Then the Notorious P.U.F.T. shows up but more on that later. I guess I'll look at things in order of appearance. First off, the beat is one of the best in ERB. It was customized just for this battle and is super rocking. We got nice synth on the Ghostbusters, nice guitar on the Mythbusters, everything fits perfectly. I love the beat. Casting for the Ghostbusters was okay. Chris Gorbos is definitely the closest Bill Murray lookalike for the job, so kudos. Egon Spengler was a character practically made just for Zach and Harold Ramis, god rest his soul, so kudos. Mark Douglas also fairly looks the part, so kudos. And then there's Walt. I like him, we shared a couple sentences in conversation, he's definitely a cool dude, it's always exciting to see an ERB fan be associated with an ERB, but he does not look like Winston. It's just a case of token black guy playing token black guy. He also gets like the least dialogue sans Janine. It feels like ERB's way of saying "we acknowledge the fans but we're going to cast them to the side." I know, that's totally bullshit, and it's probably more like "Winston was such a cast-to-the-side character in Ghostbusters so we're doing the same here," but the way Walter Downing was hyped up, I was expecting a good lot more. In terms of voices, everyone sounds the part just as well as they look the part. It sounds fairly good. Locations for Ghostbusters are easily my favorite. The Firehouse and Ghostbusters Commercial are near-identical and looked generally better than the Mythbusters storage building place that I'm too lazy to find the name of right now. Gozer's stage wasn't as visually impressive as the misty staircase either imo. Choreography was decent but nowhere near as cool as Adam's and Jamie's dance. Casting for Mythbusters was beautiful save for Chris Alvarado. He's not bad, it's just the hair not looking quite like Tory's that throws me on him. Everyone sounds great. It's pretty good casting. I said what I needed about the Mythbusters' backgrounds. It has more details, but those details aren't as good-looking as the details in the Ghostbusters' locations. Choreography was so fucking awesome and fun for the first verse, much more "stand here and say the lyrics" for the second verse. And then the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man third party raps. Here's why that doesn't work: He's too connected to one side of the battle than the other. Stay Puft and Mythbusters have to have that mediator of Ghostbusters to have a connection. You can't just have a third-party rapper show up and have no more in common with one than the original connection or similar. That'd be like if you did Minecraft vs Lego and had a fucking Creeper third-party. Or if you did Pokémon vs My Little Pony and had Meowth third-party. Fuck you Animeme. "But Hippie, what about James Bond vs Austin Powers? That battle was great but Sean Connery's James Bond had much more in common with Daniel Craig's James Bond than Austin Powers." Yeah true but that was where the battle completely changed message. It became, at that moment, James Bond vs James Bond. Austin Powers was just off to the side trying to figure out how to get a bit of attention in the more serious argument. This battle doesn't do that. It acts like Stay Puft is completely connected to both sides equally and he disses both of them. In fact, he disses the Mythbusters even more. It just doesn't fit. As for how he was played, it was great. The Biggie Smalls parody is fun and Lloyd voiced him really well. Taylor Cu's dances were really fun and it was definitely fun having Stay Puft share the movements of a college mascot. The background was pretty minimal and disappointing. And for Christ's sake why do people actually give a fuck if the mouth doesn't move? This costume cost so much, be glad they got as good a costume as they did. Fuck. Lyrics On to the fun part. Ghostbusters: Are you tired of two geeks in mustaches, (Okay and that's the facial hair joke everyone, we can go home content that they made a single facial hair joke. Also, the whole Ghostbusters Commercial bit isn't really that fun when we've already seen it. Remember when Ghostbusters did a commercial? Here's a shot for shot remake of that scene with a few words replaced. Like, it's cool that you guys have seen the movie enough to have the mannerisms of how they all step forward down pact, but shit dude you can't expect us to just love it because it is a joke from Ghostbusters.) Who can manage to be boring with explosions and crashes? (This line is pretty awkward. It's presented as if the explosions and car crashes are the boring parts of the show, when the joke is that there's a bunch of sitting around watching them build shit before they get to the explosions and crashes and by then you're pretty bored.) If you or the Lorax wanna bust like we do, (Wait, the Lorax? As in a second facial hair joke? Okay if you insist, but just to remind you, not only did you already do this joke, you did it two lines ago. Also, this commercial was just addressing the viewers of Mythbusters, now you're talking to the Mythbusters themselves? Who is this commercial for?!) Give us a call. We're ready to defeat you! (Just more Ghostbusters quotes with a word or two replaced. This is the majority of the Ghostbusters' lyrics.) Ghostbusters! Flow crushers! Get the job done! (Flow crushers is decent but just sorta a "hey look we're rapping" kind of line. Get the job done is filler. "Oh but it's a reference to how good they are at ghostbusting and flow crushing" yeah okay but shut the fuck up.) Spitting out the lyrics like "we got one!" (This line makes zero sense. Like seriously, have to read the rap meaning of this lyric? No one can wrap their head around it. It's their calling? Besides "phone ringing" where the hell do you get "calling"? How does one spit out lyrics like they got one? Is it literally as simple as their rapping being like "I have a line here it is!"? Because if so this line is so fucking weak like holy shit. Or maybe...comparing their rapping to "we got one" is a metaphor for their entire verses being nothing but lines lifted from Ghostbusters... Holy shit actually that meaning makes the most fucking sense. Wtf.) Get the people moving like the Statue of Liberty! (Because Ghostbusters 2. Remember that movie? I don't want to either. Comparably this line isn't that bad, and your battle is doing poorly when the best Ghostbusters line is a Ghostbusters 2 reference.) Try to beat us in a battle? Man, you gotta be kidding me! (This line is pure filler. Like...pure unadulterated filler. One of the most filler lines I've ever fucking seen. What the fuck actually is this shit. YOU ARE EPIC RAP BATTLES OF HISTORY! THIS IS SEASON FOUR! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE!) The delivery of Stantz stands straight like my main man's Slinky! (Again, Ghostbusters 2 leading in lyricism. Fucking Ghostbusters 2. The worst Ghostbusters movie INCLUDING THE REBOOT. Seriously though, this line is cool if it weren't for the fact that it's just another reference lifted straight from Ghostbusters.) I collect spores. Tell 'em 'bout the Twinkie. (What even is the spores part of this line. Who battle raps by lightly mentioning their hobby? Like what the fuck. Not to mention it's just another goddamn quote lifted straight from Ghostbusters. Then guess what it's followed by? ANOTHER QUOTE LIFTED STRAIGHT FROM GHOSTBUSTERS.) Like your show, it's all fluff and filler. (I like what you did with the Twinkie, and I like how you didn't just use the Egon Twinkie explanation straight from the movie, but this is pretty goddamn hypocritical when this is the first completely original non-filler line of your verse.) I'll kick your hiney, man. I'm a savage killer. (Praise be to Zach.) Mythbusters: Wow! Your raps are just too wack to handle! (They really were. Now, this line is filler, but considering the previous line was really great, this is sorta one of those "breather" lines that I'll let slide.) Let's do it like we do on the Discovery Channel. (Fucking love this line. Really funny. ��You and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals..��) Your science is preposterous, the opposite of competent process! (This is one of the best lines in ERB history. Does it save this battle's writing? Not really, but I'm not going to act like this line is bad just because the rest of the battle's lines are. It fits the characters so well to have them battle rap on the basis of bad science in Ghostbusters, and the phrase "the opposite of competent process" is one of the most brutal ways to call someone stupid. I love this line.) And in this episode, we'll give you a synopsis! (It's a wonder why Mythbusters won this battle. The flow is better, so many better internal rhymes, much less filler, and the lyrics aren't solely quotes lifted straight from a different source.) Starting with the vacuum cleaners strapped up on your back, (Lemme hear it) It's a fact! Positrons don't react like that! (Oooh tssssssss. So good. You can't get more brutal than calling a bunch of scientists out on their bullshit science.) You built a laser grid with no safety switch, (Still going strong. Can't say anything bad about things that aren't bad.) And Walter Peck was right, that's some shady shit! (A movie that paints snobby establishment as dicks yet that snobby establishment being totally right in the situation? How did Ghostbusters even get made with how ass-backwards that is?) Good thing you work in a firehouse, 'cause you just got burned. (Eh. A bit too easy of a diss considering everything else we just heard.) You are poor scientists, and that's confirmed. (Sorta the same as last line, but hey, at least it's not bad.) Ghostbusters: That's enough from the walrus and Dickless the Clown. (Another facial hair joke. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here. You guys ain't said shit and you're already back to the facial hair joke. Fucking hell man. And what's more but the second half of the line is just another directly-lifted Ghostbusters joke with a random word at the end to rhyme it with, oh let me guess, another Ghostbusters joke?) Let's show these myth bitches how we do it downtown! (ANOTHER FUCKING GHOSTBUSTERS JOKE. We get it, the movie was funny, but just reminding us of the funny stuff those guys came up with doesn't count as coming up with fucking anything.) Grab your sticks! Holdin'! Heat 'em up! Smokin'! (I am just appalled.) High speed shows your ass get beat in slow motion! (Honestly, it's cool you guys included an original line, but all this does is explain a high-speed camera, something that almost every YouTube viewer is already up to speed with due to the plethora of very popular YouTubers who already associate themselves with high-speed camera for slow motion footage, like The Slow Mo Guys and Backyard Scientist.) We roast show hosts when our flows cross streams! (It's getting better honestly. Like "fuck your real science, we're about to spit some total protonic reversal on your asses.") Pumping out blockbusters while you work behind the scenes! (This is a really good line. Doesn't make up for garbage yet.) It's a rap test, dummy, and you're both getting crashed! (Mehhhhh. Lame "test dummy" pun followed by brief synopsis of what test dummy is used for. It just doesn't stick well with me.) We came, we saw, we kicked your ass! (Fuck you. Thought you learned your lesson but nope, in fact, you completely ended the fucking verse with that joke-stealing bullshit.) Mythbusters: Ghosts aren't real, but it should be said, (Ghosts aren't real is like a total end-all-be-all statement, but that doesn't mean the rest of the line can be filler.) It's time to bring the B-Team back from the dead. (Harmless introductory statement.) Hey! Things are getting scary when Tory, Grant, and Kari, (Also pretty harmless, just not all that in-depth.) Come harder than Ray when that ghost popped his cherry! (This felt much more direct than any of the other Ghostbusters jokes so I'll let this pass, though it would've held much more weight had most of the "lady ghost going down on Ray" scene hadn't been scrapped from Ghostbusters (the original script saw Ray meeting that ghost somewhere before she followed him home to have some fun).) We reject your flows and substitute our own! (While this isn't much more than a word replacement of an Adam Savage quote, it was right after one of those more "oooohhhh" lines so it can be a little lax. What I really love though is that they specifically leave in an internal rhyme scheme because the rhyme will never be picked up by the next line. Kudos for that one.) Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... (Yeah, it's cool Tory, this verse hasn't been all that impressive, I'd kinda be at a loss for words too. Anyway yeah decently funny moment.) Why'd you stop? I couldn't think of a rhyme.. (Now this is how you do story progression in a rap battle. If this wasn't Epic Rap Battles of History, the whole introduction to Stay Puft probably would've been something stupid like "Now say hello to the giant marshmallow that will bring you to your doom" or something.) Well just say the first thing that pops into your mind! (Super clever. This battle honestly did not have enough of repurposing jokes from Ghostbusters into ERB's own thing, and that's the major downfall of this battle, but this line takes the whole "it just popped in there" scene from Ghostbusters and turns it into something really funny. It's as if Adam had seen Ghostbusters before watching this yet still mistakingly gives this suggestion not immediately realizing what the consequence would be. What happens next I cannot agree with at all.) The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man: Aw... Aw... (This lasts....wait for it...wait for it...two seconds. No, seriously, two seconds. It's crazy because we get to see the Ghostbusters try and stop Tory a second too late, we see the characters react to the ground shaking with each stomp, and we see a slight glimpse of Stay Puft through the buildings in a shot based straight off of a scene from Ghostbusters, but it only lasts two seconds. Two lousy seconds. In Ghostbusters around a minute of screentime is spent showing Ray freak out that he inadvertently just made the decision and the audience is left in suspense over the ghastly horror that is to go against the Ghostbusters only for them to be faked out and they reveal that it's just a marshmallow mascot. That's where the comedy of the scene comes from. From the amount of time spent building up and letting the imagination run wild. "He was at a camp? Was he attacked by a bear?! Is there going to be a giant bear?!" Then the punchline of the scary monster actually being the marshmallows he was roasting and not something that attacked him as he was roasting marshmallows. It's hilarious. This is literally blink and you miss it. And that is a disservice to the humor of the scene and the most blatant use of this battle's member berry system.) (For those who may be wondering "why have it longer than this though? Shouldn't this be fine?" Well it's because with the length of time it takes for Stay Puft to be summoned and show up, the audience can't register what's happening. It took me like three or four viewings to understand why the fuck Stay Puft showed up and I had to actually focus on the lyrics and pause to get it. The laymen audience just watching once will leave like "I don't know why Stay Puft was there so that was weird" when there totally was a reason, the audience just couldn't register it before they were trying to register the Biggie.) Yo, raise up! It's Stay Puft! I stay fluff! (A lot of the performance of Stay Puft is in the voice and the dancing. The lyrics are kinda generic, mainly because just about every take of recording for Stay Puft was some new improvised verse. Honestly don't have much of a problem with that, it's very fun for sure, just don't jump into this expecting much.) Blaze chumps and flip Kari butter-side-up! (So yeah, it's Biggie. Very fun and all, it just feels like this wasn't quite the most fun part. A bit too half-in/half-out on this specific line as Mat4yo would say. I say play more to the Biggie or play less to the Biggie.) I smother Ghostbusters in fluffernutter, I don't play! ("I do this thing that's relevant and has cool flow; I don't do this thing that's rhyme filler.") Show these dweebs how to rock a beret! (Cute but Ghostbusters could've just made this joke themselves if they weren't too busy quoting themselves like they get off on it.) I live so large you can't harsh my mellow, (This line's actually really good tbh.) Just one step took me out the ghetto! (This line is genius and hilarious. Not a lot of ERB lines can be so simple yet still have both a metaphorical and a literal meaning, so this is definitely really good.) You best be afraid of my marshmallow flows, (We're almost done and right now this is feeling like a whole lotta filler.) 'Cause Big Puft just turned all you bitches to toooaaaassst! (Done buh-bye now. Very simple line that isn't good nor bad it just exists okay we're done here.) So you may be wondering why I was so hard on Ghostbusters making their lyrics nothing but the jokes from their movies. Comedy characters are hard to write for. ERB has stated this themselves. There needs to be a balance found in personality of the characters and what they would say. Sometimes it's good to do a joke from the actual piece of comedy, whether as a nod to the original source or to rework it as a new joke, but relying solely on jokes from the original source should definitely be avoided. This is what made Austin Powers a much better character in ERB. Everything he said was less stuff actually said in his movies and more stuff that he would say given the chance to actually rap battle James Bond. Napoleon Dynamite was also very well written, but strangely enough Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't. Bonaparte actually borrowed more jokes from Napoleon Dynamite than he had his own lines. So yeah, that's how I feel Ghostbusters could've been fixed up in this: write a fucking joke. Rewrite Wow Hippie now you're really overstepping your boundaries. Going around rewriting an ERB like you own the place? Jesus. Fuck it. Not everything sucked so I'm only rewriting the parts that did. Plus I haven't rewritten a battle in a bit and I'm not going to rewrite another one for a while so I kinda need to take this rewrite. Ghostbusters: Are you a couple of geeks with mustaches Kept up every night by bumps and loud crashes? If a scientific debunker just isn't gonna do, Give us a call. We're ready to defeat you! The Ghostbusters, there's no other; we get the job done! Crushing culture buffs and skeptics; we got one! We get the people moving like the Statue of Liberty! You need to wake up all your viewers by exploding a Lamborghini! The delivery of Stantz stands straight like my main man's Slinky, What Egon says is no-nonsense. Tell 'em 'bout the Twinkie. Like your show, it's all fluff and filler. I'll kick your hiney, man. I'm a savage killer. Mythbusters: Wow, your raps are just too wack to handle! Let's do it like we do on the Discovery Channel. Your science is preposterous, the opposite of competent process, And in this episode we'll give you a synopsis. Starting with the vacuum cleaners strapped up on your back, It's a fact: positrons don't react like that! You built a laser grid with no safety switch, And Walter Peck was right, that's some shady shit. Shoulda given raps a field test if you didn't wanna get burned, Your poor science has no control, and that's confirmed. Ghostbusters: I've heard enough crap from two creeps in a shed, I'd like to see you try to get a babe floating near your bed. Your boring science mumbo-jumbo when you spit a rhyme? Throw it in slo-mo like you haven't been killing too much time. We roast show hosts when our flows cross streams! Pumping out blockbusters while you work behind the scenes! We take buster dummies and their dummy Buster, Chuck 'em to Slimer, and pass the mustard. Mythbusters: Ghosts aren't real, but my method has led Us to bring the B-Team back from the dead. Hey! Things are getting scary when Tory, Grant, and Kari! Come harder than Ray when that ghost popped his cherry! We reject your flows and substitute our own! Uhhhhhhmmmmmm.... Why'd you stop? I couldn't think of a rhyme.. Well just say the first thing that pops into your mind. (A much more protracted sequence, maybe fifteen seconds or so, of giant stomping shaking the ground and startling the Mythbusters while the Ghostbusters panic a bit. The character on his way is obscured a bit by the buildings before he finally turns the corner and reveals himself to be the fifty-foot marshmallow mascot towering over everyone.) The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man: Aww... Aww... Aww... Aww... It's the lub of Big Puft gon' crush up some bustas, Ghostly homedawgs, go in join up what you can musta! (Zuul!) I smother Ghostbusters in fluffernutter spray, Show these dweebs how to rock a beret! (Hey!) I live so large you can't harsh my mellow, Just one step took me out the ghetto! You wouldn't want s'more of my kind of flow, That's a marshmallow roast by the fireside. Ohhhh!! Okay there done not too bad. Conclusion It's Epic Rap Battles of History. When they make something that's not that good, they've yet to take it anywhere past "not that good." It's nowhere near what it could've been and probably served as one of the biggest things that influenced ERB to take comedy characters and create new content in relation to what they would say and not necessarily what they have said, which they would go on to do with characters like Deadpool and Austin Powers. And the stuff they did right they did awesome. Gg no re. See you soon with a new Hippie Rat Battle Rap or two, then Hippie Rat Reviews will return on the turn of the month. Have a great day. Category:Blog posts